The role of sustainable environment attributes in luxury product perceptions: Evidence from an emerging market

The social responsibility aspect of the luxury product concept has recently started to receive more attention from researchers and practitioners. However, the luxury product perceptions measurement in the literature often does not incorporate the sustainable environment friendly dimensions of the luxury goods consumption. Therefore in this study, we attempt to investigate the role of sustainable environment benefits in consumers’ value perceptions of the luxury products. Data for the study was collected from n?=?218 female consumers who were shopping in high-end luxury apparel retailers located in exclusive shopping centers in Turkey. Study results show four dimensions (exclusiveness, normative beliefs, self-directed pleasure, and social/prestige) of luxury goods perceptions of female Turkish consumers. Practical and research implications of the study findings are presented.     

The Effects of Corporate Ethical Values and Personal Moral Philosophies on Ethical Intentions in Selling Situations: Evidence from Turkish, Thai, and American Businesspeople

The goals of this study are to test a pattern of ethical decision making that predicts ethical intentions of individuals within corporations based primarily on the ethical values embedded in corporate culture, and to see whether that model is generally stable across countries. The survey instrument used scales to measure the effects of corporate ethical values, idealism, and relativism on ethical intentions of Turkish, Thai, and American businesspeople. The samples include practitioner members of the American Marketing Association in the U.S., and full-time businesspeople enrolled in executive MBA programs in Thailand and Turkey. The study is positioned within a fairly new stream that assesses patterns across countries, rather than differences between them, in a way that might be called “culture free.” The results show a generally positive influence between cultural ethical values and ethical intentions. The results also indicate that the positive effect of corporate ethical values on ethical intentions is greater for managers with low idealism and high relativism. We also discuss the implications of our results for managers of international businesses.     

Untangling African indigenous management: Multiple influences on the success of SMEs in Kenya

This article examines the nature of indigenous management in relation to the success of SMEs in sub-Saharan Africa, taking Kenya and six SMEs under the management of Kenyan Africans, Kenyan Asians and Kenyan British as examples. It proposes that management systems, styles and practices, when appropriate to the local cultural contexts, will give rise to successful organizations. By formulating tentative hypotheses about this relation after reviewing the literature, the data from these case studies are interrogated first by using a ‘template’ derived from theories of management control to investigate the inter-continental cultural influences on local management, and then inductively to modify and develop the original hypotheses in view of possible intra-country influences. Paternalism, emerges as a common theme in the way cultural influences are combined, suggesting different types of paternalism for in-group and out-group organizational members. This is a possible success factor for local SMEs. Implications for future research in these areas and management practice are discussed.     

Investigating the impacts of energy consumption,real GDP,tourism and trade on CO2 emissions by accounting for cross-sectional dependence: A panel study of OECD countries

The objective of this study is to analyse the long-run dynamic relationship of carbon dioxide emissions, real gross domestic product (GDP), the square of real GDP, energy consumption, trade and tourism under an Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) model for the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member countries. Since we find the presence of cross-sectional dependence within the panel time-series data, we apply second-generation unit root tests, cointegration test and causality test which can deal with cross-sectional dependence problems. The cross-sectionally augmented Dickey-Fuller (CADF) and the cross-sectionally augmented Im-Pesaran-Shin (CIPS) unit root tests indicate that the analysed variables become stationary at their first differences. The Lagrange multiplier bootstrap panel cointegration test shows the existence of a long-run relationship between the analysed variables. The dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS) estimation technique indicates that energy consumption and tourism contribute to the levels of gas emissions, while increases in trade lead to environmental improvements. In addition, the EKC hypothesis cannot be supported as the sign of coefficients on GDP and GDP² is negative and positive, respectively. Moreover, the Dumitrescu–Hurlin causality tests exploit a variety of causal relationship between the analysed variables. The OECD countries are suggested to invest in improving energy efficiency, regulate necessary environmental protection policies for tourism sector in specific and promote trading activities through several types of encouragement act.     

An Exploratory Cross-Cultural Analysis of Marketing Ethics: The Case of Turkish,Thai, and American Businesspeople

Although a number of studies have shown that corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities often lead to greater organisational performance in western developed economies, researchers are yet to examine the strategic value of CSR in emerging economies. Using survey data from 280 firms operating in Dubai, this study examines the link between CSR activities and organisational performance. The results show that CSR has a positive relationship with all three measures of organisational performance: financial performance, employee commitment, and corporate reputation. These results reinforce the accumulating body of empirical support for the positive impact of CSR on performance and challenge the dominant assumption that, given the weak institutional framework in emerging economies, CSR activities drain resources and compromise firms’ competitiveness.     

Demarcation of the core and periphery dichotomy: evidence from Turkey's shipyards for a paradoxical precarity model

Combining ethnographic inquiries with questionnaires, this article rectifies the dearth of systematic research on core employees in Turkey's shipyards. In doing so, it revises conventional associations of precarity with the peripheral jobs both exclusively and predominantly. In particular, we point to the rise of a peculiar model, ‘paradoxical precarity’, as the core jobs have become more identifiable with precarity than the rest. Paradoxical precarity has four distinguishable contours: (i) The masses of core employees lost their jobs to precarious workers. (ii) Even so, a substantial proportion of employees remain at the core. (iii) This, however, came at a cost: they became more dissatisfied than others with remuneration, job security, employee involvement and job intensity whilst frustrated with unions and (iv) paradoxical precarity has faced political and economic challenges but it is reproduced by a managerial short‐termism under competitive pressures to save on high skills thanks to an ever‐increasing number of graduates.     

Mutual interests management with a purposive approach: Evidence from the Turkish shipyards for an amorphous impact model between (subjective) well-being and performance

To enhance the academic endeavours confronting the globalisation of managerial orthodoxy (predicated on antagonising the interests of companies and employees), we will investigate the relationship between institutional performance and employees' (subjective) wellbeing in Turkish shipyards by undertaking an extensive survey. We will argue that there is a positive association between the two covariates that lends itself to a conceptual frame of Mutual Interests Management (MIM). The MIM refers to the managerial impacts that result in cross-fertilisations between the interests of companies and employees. However, we will also argue that MIM has a dynamic and amorphous character in the sense that no correlation whether it be positive, negative or the lack of thereof necessarily survives through our purposive analyses with the trial of various interaction models among the specific types and combinations of variables considered. Accordingly, the conclusion stresses that the amorphous nature of MIM can be adapted by the managers at company-level to tailor or innovate feasible MIM strategies.